The story that inspired Nashville's first civil rights public art

Witness Walls to become Nashville's first public art focused on civil rights.
George Walker IV / The Tennessean

The front page of the Nashville Tennessean from April 20, 1960, details the report of the bombing of Z. Alexander Looby's home and the ensuing silent march by more than 3,000 students to City Hall. There, then-Mayor Ben West, recommended lunch counters be desegregated.(Photo: File)

A collection of fragmented concrete walls, the sculpture places visitors among the heroic people who took part in that march and in Nashville's civil rights movement. The art focuses on the "mundane actions" of sitting and standing, rendered — as Witness Walls artist Walter Hood said — "so extraordinary by their intent: desegregation."

"We are at this moment," Hood said. "Now is the time for conversation. This is not just about commemoration, but about memory."

And about an experience.

Standing 7 feet, 6 inches tall, the walls use shadow and light to capture the metaphor of struggle as figures and scenes emerge and retreat along the walls' coarse surfaces.

Some walls are flat, with a mosaic of black rock creating pictures of mothers grasping small children's hands, demonstrators falling to the ground and police wielding clubs and seizing marchers. Other walls are curved, covered in compositions of photographic images of praying and preaching and protesting, all selected from the Nashville Banner collections at the Nashville Public Library.

The outdoor space also includes reflective fountains, benches and musical recordings from the civil rights era.

The idea is to create a different way of moving, and a different way of thinking.

"We want to construct new narratives," Hood said.

What figures will you know?

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Witness Walls to become Nashville's first public art focused on civil rights in Nashville, Tenn.(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

Clergy organized meetings. Mothers walked their children to newly desegregated schools. Students, both black and white, walked picket lines or served as community messengers to report arrests.

Witness Walls reflect the many actions change.

"The civil rights history in this city, and in others, is a movement," said Jennifer Cole, executive director of the Metro Nashville Arts Commission. "Individual people get called out in the history books, and those people played important roles, but when you peel back Nashville's story it was thousands and thousands of people who you will never see in a book and who you will never hear mentioned who did very small but collectively important things."

It's 2017, why did it take so long for the city to recognize Civil Rights with art?

The art has been a long time coming.

Ideas for a civil-rights inspired piece arose in 2011 when the Nashville Civil Rights Veterans Association approached the city about honoring the local movement for equality.

The next year, plans for a sculpture were put in place for a stretch of Fifth Avenue North in the heart of downtown, where a group of mostly black college students from Fisk University, American Baptist College and then-Tennessee A&I University (now Tennessee State) staged sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in 1960. They tested downtown businesses such as Woolworth's, Walgreens, McLellan's and Grant's by asking to be served.

They were refused.

The actions were not only part of the greater civil rights movement in the United States, they were formative in it.

But, in the ever-changing landscape that is Nashville today, the location originally identified for the public art to honor those activists fell through. At the same time, the Commission received some criticism for choosing a location that was too small and allotting too little money.

In response, the Commission budgeted more and found another location of significance — the place to where students marched the day they protested the bombing of Looby's home.

Witness Walls to become Nashville's first public art focused on civil rights in Nashville, Tenn.(Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessea)

Patton, a former Tennessee A&I student and a 1961 Freedom Rider, marched that April day in 1960.

A friendship and a trip to the movie theater that inspired activism

A native Nashvillian, he was in 3rd grade when he first became aware of racism. He often played make-believe games like cowboys and Indians with a white boy who lived across the alley from his North Nashville home. When his friend came outside one day bubbling over with excitement from a trip to the movie theater, the boy told Patton: "Tell your mama to take you to see a movie."

She did, but as Patton excitedly approached the theater and headed for the front door, his mother pulled him away.

“But my friend said …” were all the words of protest Patton got out before his mother, with a stern look, led him down an alley and up a set of dark steps to the balcony of the theater. He knew that day he would someday stand against that injustice.

"Nashville was my home," the now 77-year-old Patton said. "It was part of my job to clean it up."

Years later, when Patton joined the civil rights movement as a music major at Tennessee A&I, his mother said with satisfaction, “I knew that you would be a part of that."

His role was that of a runner. He stood outside the stores where the sit-ins were being staged, and when students were arrested, he would go to the nearest phone, fish coins out of his pocket, and call First Baptist Capitol Hill church where the demonstrations were being coordinated. "The Walgreen’s students are being arrested," he would say. Then a second group assigned to Walgreen’s would come from the church and fill up the stools again.

Later, Patton, too, would make the silent walk to Nashville's City Hall. And, when Nashville's own lunch counters were desegregated, he would leave with a group of Freedom Riders and be arrested at a lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.

'Long overdue'

A project honoring all those who participated in the city's civil rights movement has been long overdue, he said.

"I think, to be quite honest with you, when it comes to the history I think Nashville is a little bit behind," said Patton, who served on the selection committee that chose Hood's Witness Walls. "We focus more on country music. You have to go other places — Memphis and Atlanta — to see about the civil rights history of Nashville and the changes that were made as a result of the 60s."

Witness Walls remembers that movement and makes it relevant again.

"We knew we wanted to make a change," he said. "It wasn't about us. It was about the generations to come."

Now, those generations are here.

CELEBRATE THE UNVEILING OF WITNESS WALLS

Witness Walls is inspired by the events and people who created the blueprint for nonviolent protest during the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, Witness Walls artist and creator Walter Hood, and community leaders will join the Metro Arts Commission for the public dedication to honor those who fought for racial equality and continue the important conversation about social justice in our community.

When: 2 p.m., Friday

Where: Nashville's Public Square Park at the Historic Metro Courthouse (Corner of 3rd Avenue North and James Robertson Parkway)